Candidates running to be Charleston’s next mayor have attended two dozen forums in the last few months to address people directly on some of the biggest issues facing the city, giving many voters a pretty clear picture of what is important.
“As I look around at the world and the country, I remain convinced how blessed we are to be from Charleston and to be in Charleston,” Mayor John Tecklenburg said at a September forum. “But we have to continue to focus on a few things, and No. 1 is public safety — that’s the foundation of everyone’s quality of life. No. 2 is managing water — we’ve seen with storms and rising sea levels that this is an existential threat.”
First on the list for most candidates, however, is leadership. At an Oct. 17 forum hosted by the Rotary Club of Charleston, candidates William Cogswell, Clay Middleton, Peter Shahid, Mika Gadsden and Debra Gammons answered 18 submitted questions, several of which dealt with the current city administration. Tecklenburg was unable to attend because he was representing the city’s position on extending Interstate 526. His son, Joseph, filled in.
“I think we need vision. I think we need leadership,” said Cogswell, a former Republican state representative. “I think we need somebody in office who understands both the public and private sectors, and somebody who can be very pragmatic about getting things accomplished. I think what happens in our city over the next three to five years is going to define our trajectory for the next century.”
Other candidates agreed, adding that it goes beyond experience.
“You don’t just have to have the resume to run and win,” said Gadsden, a longtime community activist. “You have to be smart enough, nimble enough, flexible enough to surround yourself with the right people to bring about that transformative change that will make Charleston the best place for everyone. Not just the wealthy and the elite.”
Public safety
Other questions dealt heavily with public safety, especially relating to a one-night “riot” on part of King Street after the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minnesota. Cities across the nation experienced violence during that time.
“Whatever calls were made that night resulted in chaos,” Cogswell said. “It resulted in a city that was ripped apart. … The mayor did not take full responsibility for it, and that’s what leadership is all about. If you make a call, and the next day you get out and say, ‘Well it really wasn’t my fault,’ that to me shows lack of leadership and lack of accountability.”
But Joseph Tecklenburg stood up for his father’s leadership: “No question that night was a bad night for the city, but I will point out, no one died,” he said. “We had one bad night, and you saw the response the next day. I think a lot of cities in America would have wished they had just had one bad night.”
Other candidates said it was more important to get to the root of the problem that ultimately led to protests and riots — racial disparities in policing and a broken community.
“We need leadership that’s going to get to the root of that disruption, not just ruminate on what happened that night,” Gadsden said. “I really do not want to hear that night be politicized or weaponized against another candidate. It’s gone on too long, and we’re not talking about the root causes of the issue.
“It’s important that we don’t have leadership in place or a mindset that we overreact and overcorrect,” she added. “Our biggest failure that night was not the absence of law enforcement — they were there — it was the absence of community. … We’re on the right track in regards to public safety. We need to get our community back on track.”
Tecklenburg, the mayor, often touts Charleston’s police department as the highest paid in the region. As mayor, he has added to the police budget every year. Charleston has also been recognized nationally, he said, for its recruitment efforts and retention in the police and fire departments.
Rising water
Flooding is not a new issue to Charleston, as several candidates have said. But the issue is getting worse, and flooding and rising sea levels are considered existential threats to the city of Charleston.
Tecklenburg often boasts of more than 50 flood prevention and drainage projects that have been started and completed during his tenure as mayor, but other candidates see little effective change in flooding, especially in older neighborhoods.
“I am 41 years old. It floods in places now with all those improvements that it flooded when I was a child,” Middleton said. “I live in West Ashley. Ditches and pipes, especially in older communities, are too small, and there’s not regular maintenance being done to address it.”
Cogswell said if he is elected, there would be less talk and more action, though he did not share details of what could be done.
“I do think this is a major issue. I don’t think we can afford to wait another three or four years before we really act on this,” Cogswell said. “I agree it’s good to have a plan, but some of these things we’ve been studying for years, decades. We know where it floods. … These things can be addressed, and they can be addressed aggressively.”
Gammons said while rising sea levels contribute heavily to flooding issues, it also ties back to other city services.
“Flooding is a major issue for all of us, and areas that did not flood years ago are flooding now,” she said. “A lot of it has to do with overbuilding and us making sure our streets and drainage systems are clean.”
Other issues
In light of ongoing dysfunction among the leaders of the Charleston County School District, concern about the direction of education in Charleston was evident, although candidates said they understood a mayor plays a small role in the city’s schools.
“The city is not involved in the business of education, but it should be involved in making sure we have a wonderful school system,” said Shahid, a current West Ashley councilman. “Part of where people live depends on the school they want their children to go to. We do have a vested interest in making sure that our schools are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, which is teaching our children.”
Other issues that continue to plague the city is rampant development, which puts strain on several areas of infrastructure, including traffic and transportation.
“Infrastructure is connected with everything,” said Middleton, a former staffer for U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. “It’s connected with health; it’s connected with education; it’s connected with housing; it’s connected with transportation — it’s about infrastructure.”
Overdevelopment also poses a threat to Charleston’s historical roots.
“We’re losing our charm,” Shahid added. “We’re losing our sense of who we are, our sense of identity as a city. Charleston has changed dramatically over the past five years, 10 years, 20 years. … We have an opportunity here to refocus our attention on the city. We can focus our attention on what’s important.”
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